Philippa Gregory's Tudor Court 6-Book Boxed Set (13 page)

He shot her a swift smile. “She is only just sixteen,” he said, “and the baby of her family, still missing her mother. You don’t make any allowances for her youth, do you?”

“I was married at twelve years old, and gave birth to you in the same year,” she returned. “No one made any allowances for me. And yet I survived.”

“I doubt you were happy.”

“I was not. I doubt that she is. But that, surely, is the last thing that matters?”

*     *     *

Doña Elvira told me that I must refuse to go to Ludlow. Father Geraldini said that it was my duty to go with my husband. Dr. de Puebla said that for certain my mother would want me to live with my husband, to do everything to show that the marriage is complete in word and deed. Arthur, the hopeless beanpole, said nothing, and his father seems to want me to decide; but he is a king and I don’t trust him.

All I really want to do is to go home to Spain. Whether we are in London or whether we live in Ludlow it will be cold, and it will rain all the time—the very air feels wet—I cannot get anything good to eat, and I cannot understand a word anybody says.

I know I am Princess of Wales and I will be Queen of England. That is true, and it will be true. But, this day, I cannot feel very glad about it.

*     *     *

“We are to go to my castle at Ludlow,” Arthur remarked awkwardly to Catalina. They were seated side by side at dinner, the hall below them, the gallery above, and the wide doors crowded with people who had come from the City for the free entertainment of watching the court dine. Most people were observing the Prince of Wales and his young bride.

She bowed her head but did not look at him. “Is it your father’s command?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I shall be happy to go,” she said.

“We will be alone, but for the warden of the castle and his wife,” Arthur went on. He wanted to say that he hoped she would not mind, that he hoped she would not be bored or sad or—worst of all—angry with him.

She looked at him without a smile. “And so?”

“I hope you will be content,” he stumbled.

“Whatever your father wishes,” she said steadily, as if to remind him that they were merely prince and princess and had no rights and no power at all.

He cleared his throat. “I shall come to your room tonight,” he asserted.

She gave him a look from eyes as blue and hard as the sapphires around her neck. “Whatever you wish,” she said in the same neutral tone.

He came when she was in bed, and Doña Elvira admitted him to the
room, her face like a stone, disapproval in every gesture. Catalina sat up in bed and watched as his groom of the bedchamber took his gown from his shoulders and went quietly out, closing the door behind him.

“Wine?” Arthur asked. He was afraid his voice quavered slightly.

“No, thank you,” she said.

Awkwardly the young man came to the bed, turned back the sheets, got in beside her. She turned to look at him, and he knew he was blushing beneath her inquiring gaze. He blew out the candle so she could not see his discomfort. A little torchlight from the guard outside flickered through the slats of the shutters, and then was gone as the guard moved on. Arthur felt the bed move as she lay back and pulled her nightdress out of the way. He felt as if he were a thing to her, an object of no importance, something she had to endure in order to be Queen of England.

He threw back the covers and jumped from the bed. “I’m not staying here. I’m going to my room,” he said tersely.

“What?”

“I shan’t stay here. I’m not wanted . . .”

“Not wanted? I never said you were not—”

“It is obvious. The way you look—”

“It’s pitch black! How d’you know how I look? And anyway, you look as if someone forced you here!”

“I? It isn’t me who sent a message that half the court heard, that I was not to come to your bed.”

He heard her gasp. “I did not say you were not to come. I had to tell them to tell you—” She broke off in embarrassment. “It was my time . . . you had to know . . .”

“Your duenna told my steward that I was not to come to your bed. How do you think that made me feel? How d’you think that looked to everyone?”

“How else was I to tell you?” she demanded.

“Tell me yourself!” he raged. “Don’t tell everyone else in the world.”

“How could I? How could I say such a thing? I should be so embarrassed!”

“Instead it is me who is made to look a fool!”

Catalina slipped out of bed and steadied herself, holding the tall carved bedpost. “My lord, I apologize if I have offended you, I don’t know how such things are done here. . . . In future I will do as you wish. . . .”

He said nothing.

She waited.

“I’m going,” he said and went to hammer on the door for his groom to come to him.

“Don’t!” The cry was forced out of her.

“What?” He turned.

“Everyone will know,” she said desperately. “Know that there is something wrong between us. Everyone will know that you have just come to me. If you leave at once, everyone will think . . .”

“I won’t stay here!” he shouted.

Her pride rushed up. “You will shame us both!” she cried out. “What do you want people to think? That I disgust you, or that you are impotent?”

“Why not? If both are true?” He hammered on the door even louder.

She gasped in horror and fell back against the bedpost.

“Your Grace?” came a shout from the outer chamber, and the door opened to reveal the groom of the bedchamber and a couple of pages, and behind them Doña Elvira and a lady-in-waiting.

Catalina stalked over to the window and turned her back to the room. Uncertainly, Arthur hesitated, glancing back at her for help, for some indication that he could stay after all.

“For shame!” Doña Elvira exclaimed, pushing past Arthur and running to throw a gown around Catalina’s shoulders. Once the woman was standing with her arm around Catalina, glaring at him, Arthur could not return to his bride; he stepped over the threshold and went to his own rooms.

*     *     *

I cannot bear him. I cannot bear this country. I cannot live here for the rest of my life. That he should say that I disgust him! That he should dare to speak to me so! Has he run mad like one of their disgusting dogs that pant everywhere? Has he forgotten who I am? Has he forgotten himself?

I am so furious with him I should like to take a scimitar and slice his stupid head off. If he thought for a moment, he would have known that everyone in the palace, everyone in London, probably everyone in this gross country, will laugh at us. They will say I am ugly and that I cannot please him.

I am crying with temper, it’s not grief. I tuck my head into the pillow of my bed, so that no one can hear me and tell everyone else that the
princess cried herself to sleep because her husband would not bed her. I am choking on tears and temper, I am so angry with him.

After a little while, I stop, I wipe my face, I sit up. I am a princess by birth and by marriage, I should not give way. I shall have some dignity even if he has none. He is a young man, a young Englishman at that—how should he know how to behave? I think of my home in the moonlight, of how the walls and the tracery gleam white and the yellow stone is bleached to cream.
That
is a palace, where people know how to behave with grace and dignity. I wish with all my heart that I were still there.

I remember that I used to watch a big yellow moon reflected in the water of the sultana’s garden. Like a fool, I used to dream of being married.

Oxford, Christmas 1501

T
HEY SET OFF A FEW DAYS BEFORE
C
HRISTMAS
. Resolutely, they spoke to each other in public with utter courtesy, and ignored each other completely when no one was watching. The queen had asked that they might at least stay for the twelve-day feast, but My Lady the King’s Mother had ruled that they should take their Christmas at Oxford; it would give the country a chance to see the prince and the new Princess of Wales, and what the king’s mother said was law.

Catalina traveled by litter, jolted mercilessly over the frozen roads, her mules foundering in the fords, chilled to the bone however many rugs and furs they packed around her. The king’s mother had ruled that she should not ride for fear of a fall. The unspoken hope was that Catalina was carrying a child. Catalina herself said nothing to confirm or deny the hope. Arthur was silence itself.

They had separate rooms on the road to Oxford and separate rooms at Magdalene College when they arrived. The choristers were ready, the kitchens were ready, the extraordinarily rich hospitality of Oxford was ready to make merry; but the Prince and Princess of Wales were as cold and as dull as the weather.

They dined together, seated at the great table facing down the hall, and as many of the citizens of Oxford who could get into the gallery took their seats and watched the princess put small morsels of food in her mouth and turn her shoulder to her husband, while he looked around the hall for companions and conversation, as if he were dining alone.

They brought in dancers and tumblers, mummers and players. The princess smiled very pleasantly but never laughed, gave small purses of Spanish coins to all the entertainers, thanked them for their attendance but never once turned to her husband to ask him if he was enjoying the evening. The prince walked around the room, affable and pleasant to
the great men of the city. He spoke in English all the time, and his Spanish-speaking bride had to wait for someone to talk to her in French or Latin, if they would. Instead they clustered around the prince and chatted and joked and laughed, almost as if they were laughing at her and did not want her to understand the jest. The princess sat alone, stiffly on her hard, carved wooden chair, her head held high and a small, defiant smile on her lips.

At last it was midnight, and the long evening could end. Catalina rose from her seat and watched the court sink into bows and curtseys. She dropped a low Spanish curtsey to her husband, her duenna behind her with a face like flint. “I bid you good night, Your Grace,” said the princess in Latin, her voice clear, her accent perfect.

“I shall come to your room,” he said. There was a little murmur of approval; the court wanted a lusty prince.

The color rose in her cheeks at the very public announcement. There was nothing she could say. She could not refuse him, but the way she rose and left the room did not promise him a warm welcome when they were alone. Her ladies dipped their curtseys and followed her in a little offended flurry, swishing off like a many-colored veil trailing behind her. The court smiled behind their hands at the high spirits of the bride.

Arthur came to her half an hour later, fired up by drink and resentment. He found her still dressed, waiting by the fire, her duenna at her side, her room ablaze with candles, her ladies still talking and playing cards as if it were the middle of the afternoon. Clearly, she was not a young woman on her way to bed.

“Sire, good evening,” she said and rose and curtseyed as he entered.

Arthur had to check his backwards step, in retreat at the first encounter. He was ready for bed, in his nightgown with only a robe thrown over his shoulders. He was acutely aware of his bare feet and vulnerable toes. Catalina blazed in her evening finery. The ladies all turned and looked at him, their faces unfriendly. He was acutely conscious of his nightgown and his bare legs and a chuckle of barely suppressed laughter from one of his men behind him.

“I expected you to be in bed,” he said.

“Of course, I can go to bed,” she returned with glacial courtesy. “I was about to go to bed. It is very late. But when you announced so publicly that you would visit me in my rooms, I thought you must be planning to bring all the court with you. I thought you were telling everyone to
come to my rooms. Why else announce it at the top of your voice so that everybody could hear?”

“I did not announce it at the top of my voice!”

She raised an eyebrow in wordless contradiction.

“I shall stay the night,” he said stubbornly. He marched to her bedroom door. “These ladies can go to their beds, it is late.” He nodded to his men. “Leave us.” He went into her room and closed the door behind him.

She followed him and closed the door behind her, shutting out the bright, scandalized faces of the ladies. Her back to the door, she watched him throw off his robe and nightgown so he was naked, and climb into her bed. He plumped up the pillows and leaned back, his arms crossed against his narrow bare chest, like a man awaiting an entertainment.

It was her turn to be discomforted. “Your Grace . . .”

“You had better get undressed,” he taunted her. “As you say, it’s very late.”

She turned one way and then the other. “I shall send for Doña Elvira.”

“Do. And send for whoever else undresses you. Don’t mind me, please.”

Catalina bit her lip. He could see her uncertainty. She could not bear to be stripped naked in front of him. She turned and went out of the bedchamber.

There was a rattle of irritable Spanish from the room next door. Arthur grinned. He guessed that she was clearing the room of her ladies and undressing out there. When she came back, he saw that he was right. She was wearing a white gown trimmed with exquisite lace, and her hair was in a long plait down her back. She looked more like a little girl than the haughty princess she had been only moments before, and he felt his desire rise up with some other feeling: a tenderness.

She glanced at him, her face unfriendly. “I will have to say my prayers,” she said. She went to the prie-dieu and kneeled before it. He watched her bow her head over her clasped hands and start to whisper. For the first time his irritation left him, and he thought how hard it must be for her. Surely his unease and fear must be nothing to hers: alone in a strange land, at the beck and call of a boy a few months younger than her, with no real friends and no family, far away from everything and everyone she knew.